Latest secret Planned Parenthood video focuses on Houston

Anti-abortion group secretly films at Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood headquarters off Gulf Freeway. The latest video was the fifth in a series of videos that a California group has produced in a campaign aimed at showing that Planned Parenthood illegally sells fetal tissue to scientists.

Photo: Michael Paulsen, Houston Chronicle

The nationwide controversy over Planned Parenthood landed in Houston on Tuesday, as a group of anti-abortion activists released a video showing staff at a clinic here discussing how to preserve the remains of aborted fetuses for research purposes.

The footage, which was secretly captured in April and had been the subject of speculation in recent days, was the fifth in a series of videos that a California group has produced in a campaign aimed at showing that Planned Parenthood illegally sells fetal tissue to scientists.

The videos have sparked a nationwide debate about fetal tissue research and Planned Parenthood. On Monday, an attempt by U.S. Senate Republicans to cut all federal funding to the organization failed when it received 53 votes, short of the 60 needed in the 100-member chamber.

Like the other videos, however, the latest footage - the first from a Texas abortion facility - provided more unanswered questions than definitive proof.

Following a now-familiar script, the 15-minute video showed a Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast executive named Melissa Farrell graphically yet casually discussing the different types, methods and costs of fetal tissue harvesting with two actors posing as employees of a tissue procurement company.

But while the video showed Farrell expressing excitement at the prospect of working with the company, an unedited transcript of the hours-long conversation does not make clear whether the organization would actually make a profit or just get reimbursed for the costs of providing the tissue.

Moreover, the transcript includes Farrell saying three times that her organization has not donated any fetal tissue in at least three years.

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast has acknowledged donating fetal tissue as recently as 2011. Nationally, Planned Parenthood officials have said a few of their affiliates donate the tissue but none sell it.

Federal law prohibits the sale of fetal tissue but allows abortion providers to donate tissue and receive compensation for costs incurred in the process. Fetal tissue research has led to major scientific breakthroughs, including playing a role in the development of the polio vaccine.

'Unexplained edits'

Melaney Linton, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, said in a statement that the video included "at least 20 substantial and unexplained edits" and "doesn't show Planned Parenthood staff engaged in any wrongdoing or agreeing to violate any legal or medical standards."

"The video released today will be difficult for many people to see," Linton acknowledged, explaining that, "medical procedures and medical research are often difficult to watch."

The video drew condemnation from Texas Republicans. Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who both ordered investigations into Planned Parenthood in Texas after the first of the videos, each issued statements within minutes of the California-based Center for Medical Progress releasing the video. Abbott called it "repulsive and unconscionable," while Paxton described it as "simply appalling."

Chris Traylor, the executive commissioner of the state health commission, which is conducting an investigation on behalf of Abbott, said the video "raises significant questions and concerns about the health and safety practices of the clinic."

The state Senate Health and Human Services Committee is also probing the practice.

Democratic state Sen. Sylvia Garcia of Houston defended Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, saying it "has helped numerous low-income families with an array of healthcare and reproductive services" and urging the investigations to "focus strictly on the facts and not on political gamesmanship."

The most graphic part of the video released Monday takes place in a laboratory at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast's massive headquarters in southeast Houston. In the footage, clinic staffers hold up remains of aborted fetuses and point out certain organs to the actors.

The staffers discuss the work casually, with Farrell at one point saying that she sometimes finds it "fun."

Earlier in the video, the actors talk with Farrell in her office and at a nearby seafood restaurant.

The video shows Farrell bragging at the restaurant that the facility's research department "contributes so much to the bottom line" and helps with the "diversification of the revenue stream."

The full transcript shows that she was speaking broadly about the organization's research department, which is involved with studies of urine, blood and vaginal swabs, among others, for research into contraception, HPV and sexual dysfunction, according to its website.

"We don't have any ongoing fetal donation," Farrell said bluntly at the restaurant.

'I'm so excited'

Back at the clinic, Farrell spoke hopefully about the prospect of working with a tissue procurement agency.

"I can't even contain myself," she said. "I'm so excited."

It is unclear, however, if she thought any arrangement with the fake company would net a profit. At several points, Farrell told the actors that fetal tissue donation is costly to do because it takes time to walk patients through consent forms and do the operation in a way to preserve organs.

She would not do it for free, Farrell said, noting that scientists have tried.

But when the actors assured Farrell that they wanted to make it more than worth her while, the she mostly did not directly respond.

Ironically, Farrell and the actors also discussed the controversial nature of Planned Parenthood and the frequent efforts by politicians to defund the organization.

"When that happens, we got multiple times that back in donations," Farrell said, not knowing that months later her words would be used in another defund effort. "So there is a positive to it, as sad as it is."

"I get it from my family: 'Oh, what do you think about this? What do you think about this in the media?'" Farrell added. "I'm like, 'Oh, I love it.'"

Brian M. Rosenthal is a state bureau reporter who primarily focuses on Texas government and politics, health and human services and enterprise projects. He is most passionate about covering vulnerable people and the ways in which they are affected by their government. An Indiana native and Northwestern University alumnus, he previously worked for The Seattle Times as a government reporter whose reporting on that region’s broken mental-health system helped spur significant reforms and was cited in a landmark state Supreme Court case.